


Unlikely Friends

by otayuriistheliteralbest



Series: JJ Style Week 2017 [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, JJ Style Week, Mentions of Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 11:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11439894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otayuriistheliteralbest/pseuds/otayuriistheliteralbest
Summary: JJ STYLE WEEK DAY 1: Friendship“Otabek Altin! Hey there!” The other boy said in English, rushing up to Otabek’s side and extending his hand. “Hey, I’m Jean-Jacques Leroy. Call me JJ.”Otabek grasped JJ’s hand, eyebrows scrunched in thought as he tried to figure out what to make of him. “Hi, JJ. Nice to meet you.”





	Unlikely Friends

The first person Otabek met when he got off the plane in Canada was a loud teenager, about his age, waving his hands in the air above his head and jumping up and down. Otabek glanced around him, trying to see who on earth this boisterous guy could possibly be looking at, when the other boy called out his name.

“Otabek Altin! Hey there!” The other boy said in English, rushing up to Otabek’s side and extending his hand. “Hey, I’m Jean-Jacques Leroy. Call me JJ.”

Otabek grasped JJ’s hand, eyebrows scrunched in thought as he tried to figure out what to make of him. “Hi, JJ. Nice to meet you.”

\---

It turned out that JJ was also a professional figure skater, one that had a lot of potential from what Otabek could see in their training together at the rink. The Canadian skater was passionate about everything and everyone he interacted with, and he was constantly talking. About his interests, his hobbies, all of the charity work he did. About the sweet brunette girl named Isabella Yang who brought her little sister to his figure skating class he taught for free at the rink on his off days. About how wonderful his parents were, how supportive they were, and about how he didn’t want to let them down. 

Otabek learned very quickly that JJ was an anxious person, always wanting to please everyone around him and constantly worrying that if he didn’t do everything perfectly, be the perfect son, the perfect figure skater, the perfect - maybe boyfriend? - that he would be a huge disappointment to everyone around him. The Kazakh skater took to listening to JJ ramble, sharing his own thoughts when he could, and attempting to steer the conversation when JJ started to talk just a little too fast; that was one of his tells, Otabek knew, for when the Canadian was working himself up.

They would go on walks through the city at night when they weren’t training early the next day. The pair would go to clubs they were allowed into as teenagers to listen to live music and DJs. They roughhoused and jostled each other, teasing and laughing as they danced their hearts out. 

The two grew closer as the months passed and turned into one year, then two. JJ started dating Isabella Yang - _finally_ \- and began opening up more to Otabek, confiding in him that sometimes when he was on the ice, he felt like the whole world was rushing toward him, trying to find fault in him and his performance. He would gasp for breath, trying to find a way to cope with the fear creeping up inside him. It was the beginning of summer now, and they were working on their routines for the next Grand Prix season, but all he could think about was that all of Canada was riding on his shoulders.

“Why don’t you write it out?” Otabek suggested one night, sitting on the floor of JJ’s room leaning against his bedframe, legs stretched out on the dirty floor in front of him, while JJ sprawled on the mattress to vent to him, gesturing wildly in the air above his head. It was easier when he didn’t have to look at Otabek. “Write a letter, a story, a poem? It can be how you’re feeling, or how you want to feel. It doesn’t matter what you write, so long as it unburdens these feelings you have, you know?”

JJ stared up at his ceiling and hummed in thought. “That’s not a bad idea, Otabek. I’ll think about it.”

When JJ rushed up to Otabek at the rink a few days later, torn notebook pages scrawled with handwritten notes grasped tightly in his shaking fingers, the Kazakh skater looked up at him with wide eyes.

“What’s this?” Otabek asked.

“What you told me to write about, you know, to get my feelings out?” JJ asked nervously, running his hand through his hair. “I thought about it a lot, and I know that this is probably really...I don’t know, cheesy, but I wrote this poem. I want to make it into a song. I can hear it in my head and I just know that it would be perfect for my short program this year. Will you read it?”

Otabek simply nodded. “Yeah, give me a few minutes okay?”

JJ flashed him a smile. “Of course, dude, totally. I’m going to hit the ice to warm up, let me know what you think.”

Otabek leaned against the boards of the rink, skimming the words on the page. There were so many phrases crossed out, so many changes, that it was a little hard to get the flow of it. The poem made him laugh - trust Jean-Jacques Leroy to write about being “King JJ”. But the Canadian skater was right, this really was him. Bold and boisterous on the outside, but with an intimacy and fear that peaked through only if you looked hard enough, read in between the lines. Otabek knew that this would be perfect for JJ, if he could get it set to music.

He glanced up at the ice, where JJ swirled his arms in the air around his head as he did easy twists and spins. Otabek would help his friend write the music, as a last present before he returned to Kazakhstan. It was the least he could do after JJ had welcomed him so completely and easily into his life.

Otabek snorted, glancing at the title at the top of the page. “Theme of King JJ, huh?” he asked himself, then Otabek set the notebook pages on a bench and took to the ice.


End file.
